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More than two years after the start of an Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique, security forces are still struggling to curb the growing violence that has killed hundreds of civilians and forced thousands of others to flee their homes. VOA’s Andre Baptista has this report narrated by Sirwan Kajjo.Produced by: Mehdi Jedinia 
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 Rapidly rising water overtook dams and forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people in central Michigan, where the governor said downtown could be “under approximately 9 feet of water” by Wednesday.
For the second time in less than 24 hours, families living along the Tittabawassee River and connected lakes in Midland County were ordered to leave home.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday evening urged anyone near the river to seek higher ground following “castastrophic dam failures” at the Edenville Dam, about 140 miles (225.31 kilometers) north of Detroit, and the Sanford Dam, about seven miles (11.26 kilometers) downriver.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen said downtown Midland, a city of 42,000 about 8 miles (12.87 kilometers) downstream from the Sanford Dam, faced an especially serious flooding threat. Dow Chemical Co.’s main plant sits on the city’s riverbank.
“In the next 12 to 15 hours, downtown Midland could be under approximately 9 feet of water,” the governor said. “We are anticipating an historic high water level.”
Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Midland County and urged residents threatened by the flooding to find a place to stay with friends or relatives or to seek out one of several shelters that opened across the county. She encouraged people to do their best to take precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, such as wearing a face covering and observing social distancing “to the best of your ability.”
“This is unlike anything we’ve seen in Midland County,” she said. ”If you have a family member or loved one who lives in another part of the state, go there now.”
Emergency responders went door-to-door early Tuesday morning warning residents living near the Edenville Dam of the rising water. Some residents were able to return home, only to be told to leave again following the dam’s breach several hours later. The evacuations include the towns of Edenville, Sanford and parts of Midland, according to Selina Tisdale, spokeswoman for Midland County.
“We were back at home and starting to feel comfortable that things were calming down,” said Catherine Sias, who lives about 1 mile (1.61 kilometers) from the Edenville Dam and first left home early Tuesday morning. “All of a sudden we heard the fire truck sirens going north toward the dam.”
Sias, 45, said emergency alerts then began coming on her cellphone and people started calling to make sure she was safe.
“While packing, there were tons of police and fire trucks going up and down the roads,” she added. “As far as I know, all of our neighbors got out.”
While driving along a jammed M-30, the state highway that’s the main road through Edenville and that crosses the river north of town, Sias saw the rushing Tittabawassee River. “It was very dramatic, very fast and full of debris,” she said.
Dow Chemical has activated its emergency operations center and will be adjusting operations as a result of current flood stage conditions, spokeswoman Rachelle Schikorra said in an email.
“Dow Michigan Operations is working with its tenants and Midland County officials and will continue to closely monitor the water levels on the Tittabawassee River,” Schikorra said.
In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revoked the license of the company that operated the Edenville Dam due to non-compliance issues that included spillway capacity and the inability to pass the most severe flood reasonably possible in the area.
The Edenville Dam, which was built in 1924, was rated in unsatisfactory condition in 2018 by the state. The Sanford Dam, which was built in 1925, received a fair condition rating.
Both dams are in the process of being sold.
There were 19 high hazard dams in unsatisfactory or poor condition in Michigan in 2018, ranking 20th among the 45 states and Puerto Rico for which The Associated Press obtained condition assessments.
Flood warnings in Michigan were issued following widespread rainfall of 4 to 7 inches (10.2 to 17.8 centimeters) since Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy runoff pushed rivers higher.
The Tittabawassee River was at 30.5 feet (9.3 meters) and rising Tuesday night – flood stage is 24 feet (7.3 meters). It was expected to crest Wednesday morning at a record of about 38 feet (11.6 meters).
The heavy rains early in the week also caused flooding elsewhere in the region. In Chicago, water that flooded some areas downtown was receding Tuesday, but Larry Langford, a fire department spokesman, said that he did not expect power to be restored at the iconic Willis Tower for days because the rains caused the building’s subbasements to fill with as much as 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water. The building was closed to tenants and visitors. 
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Brazil’s daily death toll from the new coronavirus jumped to a record 1,179 on Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump said he is considering imposing a ban on travel from Brazil. The highest daily toll before Tuesday had been 881 deaths on May 12. The pandemic has killed at least 17,971 people in Brazil, according to the Health Ministry. Brazil overtook Britain on Monday to become the country with the third-highest number of confirmed infections, behind Russia and the United States. Brazil’s confirmed cases also jumped by a record 17,408 on Tuesday, for a total of 271,628 people who have tested positive for the virus. President Jair Bolsonaro, an ideological ally of Trump, has been widely criticized for his handling of the outbreak, such as opposition to restrictions on movement he sees as too damaging to the economy. Bolsonaro said Interim Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello would issue new guidelines on Wednesday expanding the recommended use of the anti-malarial drug chloroquine to treat the coronavirus. Health Minister Nelson Teich quit on Friday under pressure to sign the guidelines, making him the second trained doctor to leave the post in a month.Brazil’s newly-named Brazil Health Minister Nelson Teich speaks during his swearing-in ceremony at Planalto palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, April 17, 2020.In an interview posted to the website Blog do Magno, Bolsonaro said Pazuello, an active duty army general who had been Teich’s deputy, would sign the new chloroquine guidelines and keep the top job for now. Bolsonaro added that his mother is 93 years old, and he keeps a box of chloroquine on hand should she need it. Trump, who announced on Monday he was taking chloroquine preventively, told reporters on Tuesday: “I don’t want people coming over here and infecting our people. I don’t want people over there sick either. We’re helping Brazil with ventilators … Brazil is having some trouble, no question about it.”  
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Iranian authorities have told a female dissident recently sentenced to more than three years in prison that she will get only two months to recover from a needed back surgery before having to start her jail term.  An Iran-based source familiar with dissident Shahla Jahanbin’s situation told VOA Persian in a Monday interview that Jahanbin went to Tehran’s Evin prison last week to present authorities with a letter from the Iranian judiciary’s Legal Medicine Office stating her need for back surgery.  Jahanbin, who has been looking after her ailing mother in Tehran, has been suffering herself from several health problems including osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease affecting both her neck and shoulders.  The source said Evin prison’s enforcement office told Jahanbin that if she went ahead with a back surgery to treat her osteoarthritis, it would give her only two months to recover before requiring her to report to the jail to start serving her three-and-a-half year sentence.  Jahanbin was one of 14 Iranian women to sign an August 9, 2019 open letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanding that he resign. The signatories wrote: “We rise against this anti-woman regime that has wiped out our human values and demand a complete departure from the Islamic Republic and drafting of a new Constitution for the establishment of a state in which women’s dignity, identity and equal rights are recognized in all areas.”  Authorities detained Jahanbin on August 21, 2019 and later charged her and the other signatories of the letter with “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion against national security.” After releasing her on bail in November, Iranian judicial authorities convicted her of both offenses and in February imposed on her a final three-and-a-half year prison term. Jahanbin has maintained her innocence. The source who spoke to VOA said Jahanbin would need more than the allotted two months to recover from a back surgery. The source did not indicate whether Jahanbin would go ahead with the procedure and it was not clear when she would have to start serving her prison sentence if she did not proceed.  Jahanbin is married to Abbas Vahedian Shahroudi, a prominent civil rights activist and author whom authorities arrested in his hometown of Mashhad on August 18, 2019, after he joined 13 other activists in signing a June 2019 open letter that also called for Khamenei’s resignation.  Another informed source in Iran told VOA Persian last week that Shahroudi’s family had learned that the detained activist also has been suffering from multiple health problems after spending nine months in Mashhad’s Vakilabad prison.  Those problems include a lung infection and an allergic condition.Jailed Iranian Activist’s Child Under Investigation for Criticizing Ailing Father’s DetentionAn Iran-based source told VOA Persian that the prisons chief of Razavi Khorasan province filed a complaint against the child of jailed dissident Abbas Vahedian Shahroudi That source said one of couple’s children fears ending up in jail after a Mashhad official filed a judicial complaint against the child for publicly criticizing Shahroudi’s continued detention in the coronavirus-infested prison. Iranian authorities have announced temporary releases for tens of thousands of prisoners since late February in part to protect them from the virus but have excluded dissidents with more than five-year prison terms from the furloughs.  According to the source familiar with Jahanbin’s situation, Jahanbin and Shahroudi have expressed concern about how their three children will cope with both of them being imprisoned.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here for the original Persian version of the story. 
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Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday it will stop selling one of its flagship products — talc-based baby powder — in the United States and Canada.The pharmaceutical company said its decision is part of a “portfolio reassessment related to COVID-19.”But J&J is facing more than 16,000 lawsuits from consumers who claim the powder is contaminated with asbestos and caused their cancer.”Demand for talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising,” J&J said in a statement.A New Jersey judge ruled last month that the claims against J&J can proceed, but the judge put limits on how far expert testimony can go.J&J insists its baby power is safe and says it has “decades of scientific studies” to back it up.But tests last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration uncovered what the FDA says were “trace” amounts of asbestos.Johnson & Johnson started selling talc-based baby power in 1894, but says it counts for just 0.5% of its consumer health goods sales.It says it will sell off its remaining stock of the powder in the U.S. and Canada but will continue to sell it — along with its cornstarch-based powder — in other countries.  
 
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U.S. evangelist Ravi Zacharias, who believed that those skeptical about religion need to be engaged in a healthy debate rather than scorned, has died of cancer at 74. His Atlanta-based international ministries said Zacharias rose to global prominence as what it calls a defender of the “intellectual credibility” of Christianity “helping the thinker believe and the believer think.”  Ministry president Michael Ramsden says Zacharias “saw the objections and questions of others not as something to be rebuffed, but as a cry of the heart that had to be answered.” Zacharias was born in Chennai, India, and says he was an atheist until he was 17 and tried to commit suicide. A hospital worker brought him a Bible.  He started his missionary work after he moved to Canada and later the United States.  Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he is “deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist whose ministry for the gospel of Jesus Christ impacted millions around the world. Ravi was a man of faith who could rightly handle the word of truth like few others in our time & he was my friend.”  
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: Two children died from a novel coronavirus vaccine in Guinea.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Agence France-Presse​Social Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Claims that a COVID-19 vaccine will genetically modify humans.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Reuters Factual Reads on CoronavirusAnimal source of the coronavirus continues to elude scientists
Computational models, cell studies and animal experiments are being used to pinpoint the viral host that kicked off the pandemic.
— Nature, May 18
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: President Donald Trump claimed the U.S. government gave $7.5 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology under his predecessor.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: FactCheck.org​Social Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Video claiming to show 5G telecoms equipment stamped with ‘COV-19’ ready to be installed into a 5G tower​.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Reuters Factual Reads on CoronavirusLife as a Covid-19 contact tracer: sleuthing, stress, and veering off-script
The task involves a good deal of detective work, profound humility, and tact. It also involves cold-calling people who may be irritated to hear from you.
–Stat, May 18
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British budget airline easyJet said on Tuesday hackers had accessed the email and travel details of around 9 million customers, and the credit card details of more than 2,000 of them, in a “highly sophisticated” attack.   “There is no evidence that any personal information of any nature has been misused, however … we are communicating with the approximately 9 million customers whose travel details were accessed to advise them of protective steps to minimize any risk of potential phishing,” it said. 
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Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has been tapped to serve as the acting chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee. FILE – Senator Richard Burr listens as Rep. John Ratcliffe testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his nomination hearing to become director of national intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 5, 2020.The Florida lawmaker was named by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Monday to replace Richard Burr of North Carolina, who is under investigation over allegations that he used advance information to sell millions of dollars of stocks in February, weeks before the coronavirus pandemic caused a meltdown of global financial markets.  Burr stepped down from his post last week after FBI agents seized his cellphone as part of its probe.  Rubio has spent much of his Senate career focusing on foreign policy as a member of both the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees. In a statement announcing his appointment, McConnell praised Rubio for his concern “for our nation’s security, advocacy for our values and interests, and vigilance toward threats.” “On subjects ranging from China and Russia to Iran and North Korea to tyranny and unrest in our own hemisphere, Senator Rubio has been on the case for years,” McConnell said. Rubio’s elevation to the post makes him one of the so-called “Gang of Eight,” composed of the top leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate and the chairs of the Intelligence committees of both chambers who receive the most sensitive classified briefings.  Rubio, who ran for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, also currently serves as chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneur Committee, which has played a leading role in legislation aimed at helping American businesses recover from the pandemic.     
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Tensions are still running high in a poor community outside Santiago, Chile, a day after dozens of protesters demanding food aid during the coronavirus lockdown clashed with police. Police fired water cannons at protesters in the “El Bosque” neighborhood who threw stones and firebombs at them and lit barricades blocking streets.Police clear a barricade during clashes demanding food aid from the government during the COVID-19 lockdown, at a poor neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, Monday, May 18, 2020. The face off occurred a day after President Sebastian Piñera announced on national television, the start of a five-point aid program, beginning with the distribution of 2.5 million baskets of food and other essential items for the most vulnerable and middle-class families in need. Pinera’s announcement comes with just under half of the country still under lockdown restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  Quarantine measures have hit thousands of Chile’s poorest individuals, preventing them from generating enough income to support their families.  The surge in unemployment caused by shutdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus has forced many poor Chileans to turn to a growing number of soup kitchens. Chile’s Health Ministry has reported 46,059 cases of coronavirus, with 478 deaths. 
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At least four people are dead and 23 others injured after a strong earthquake struck southwest China late Monday. Geologists at the China Earthquake Networks Center said a 5.0-magnitude earthquake struck in Qiaojia county in Yunnan province.  China is prone to earthquakes, especially in its mountainous western and southwestern regions. One of the worst disasters of its kind occurred in 2008, when nearly 90,000 were killed when a strong earthquake struck Sichuan province.  
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It is the “moment of truth” for the international community to stand behind Palestians in the face of the intended annexation of a large portion of their land by Israel, Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said Monday. “Now that the Israeli government has loud and clear and explicitly stated that they are going to annex certain parts of Palestine, no country has an excuse not to stand [against] this injustice,” Shtayyeh told a virtual meeting of the U.N. committee that deals with Palestinian rights. He urged the international community to impose sanctions on Israel if it carries out its annexation plans, and to bilaterally recognize Palestine as a state. Palestine holds only nonmember observer state status at the United Nations. “That should be the most serious reply to what Israel is intending to do,” he said. U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted in 2016, prohibits altering the demographic composition of Palestinian territory and calls for the freezing of Israeli settlement expansion, which it deems illegal under international law. Shtayyeh said the Palestinian leadership will meet Tuesday night to discuss their next steps. After three elections and a year of unprecedented political upheaval, Israel swore in a new unity government Sunday. Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will remain in his job for 18 months. The head of the centrist Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, will be “alternate prime minister.” Then they will swap jobs. Netanyahu reaffirmed his plans to annex Palestinian lands in the West Bank. FILE – Israeli soldiers take position as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against expansion of Israeli settlements, in the West Bank village of Beita near Nablus, March 2, 2020.“The time has come to apply sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the Israeli government’s term for the West Bank. “This won’t distance peace. It will bring it closer.” Israel wants to annex about 30% of the West Bank. It seized the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War and has occupied it ever since. The Palestinians want the land to be part of their future state. Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh faulted the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump for giving Israel the “green light” for annexation in his so-called “deal of the century” peace plan, which was unveiled in January. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a quick trip to Israel to urge Netanyahu not to rush to annex the territory. “So even if Pompeo arrives in Tel Aviv to try to say whatever he said, the Israelis will not listen to him or to anybody else, because they know they enjoy a green light from the American president,” Shtayyeh said. He said the U.S. has held an unsuccessful “monopoly” over the peace process for too long and reiterated Palestinian calls to move to a multilateral process, starting with an international conference under U.N. auspices.  
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U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters Monday that he is taking an anti-malaria drug to ward off COVID-19.  “I’ve taken it for a week-and-a-half now and I’m still here,” Trump said during a meeting in the White House State Dining Room. “What do you have to lose?”  The president explained that he is combining a hydroxychloroquine pill daily with zinc and regularly tests negative for COVID-19.  The drug significantly increases the risk of death for certain patients and has not yet been found effective in treating coronavirus patients in any sizable scientific study, including clinical trials.  The Food and Drug Administration last month Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, testifies before a House panel in Washington, May 14, 2020. Bright, among others, has warned against unproven treatments for COVID-19.In a subsequent statement, Dr. Sean Conley, the physician to the president, said that after numerous discussions with Trump about the “evidence for and against hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit for treatment outweighed the relative risks.”  Nothing in the memo sent from Conley to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany mentions a prescription written for the drug or what dosage the president might be taking.   On the Fox News Channel, a friendly cable television outlet for the president, news presenter and business journalist Neil Cavuto was taken aback and immediately issued an on-air warning.  “If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus … it will kill you,” Cavuto said, citing a medical study. “I cannot stress enough. This will kill you.” Other Fox News personalities have promoted the drug. Sean Hannity has featured claims from a New York physician, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who has claimed to have successfully cured patients of COVID-19 with a combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc. On CNN, the cable network’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, said the president “shouldn’t be taking it,” noting there is no evidence hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent the coronavirus while there are clear concerns about side effects it can cause.  Trump, since March 19, has frequently touted the drug as a treatment for COVID-19, stating that if it proves not to be effective, “it’s not going to kill anybody.” Later that month, a couple in the U.S. state of Arizona ingested the similarly sounding chloroquine phosphate, a medication for fish, believing it would protect them from the coronavirus. The husband died. The wife told NBC News she had watched televised briefings during which Trump had spoken of the potential benefits of chloroquine.  “I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘Hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?’” she said.  Poison control centers, around the same time, reported receiving an increased number of calls relating to substances containing chloroquine.  Also Monday, Trump criticized the ousted head of a federal agency who had pushed back on approval for hydroxychloroquine.  The focus on the unproven drug “was distracting to dozens of government scientists” trying to advance vaccines and other experimental therapeutics, Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) told a congressional panel last Thursday. Bright has filed a whistleblower complaint in connection with his removal from running BARDA.  Trump told reporters Monday that the only negative things he had heard about the drug were from “people that aren’t big Trump fans.” Research is continuing to see if the drug the president says he is now taking can be beneficial for treating the coronavirus.  The National Institutes of Health has launched a study testing hydroxychloroquine versus a placebo drug in 500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Last week, NIH announced another study to see if hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin can prevent hospitalization or death in people with mild to moderate illness. The coronavirus has infected more than 1.5 million people in the United States and is attributed as the cause of death of 90,000 in the country.  
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Michelle Obama was joined by a famous fellow reader Monday on her popular online series “Mondays With Michelle Obama.” The former first lady first read “The Giraffe Problem,” by Jory John and Lane Smith. Then she was joined by Barack Obama, seen over the weekend addressing the country’s high school graduating class, as they took turns — the former president even barked at one point — on Julia Sarcone-Roach’s “A Bear Ate Your Sandwich.”  Michelle Obama has been reading midday Monday for the past several weeks in support of families with small children at home during the coronavirus pandemic. Books she has featured include Julia Donaldson’s “The Gruffalo” and Eric Carle’s “The Hungry Caterpillar.”  Next Monday, she will bring on a pair of non-readers — the family’s dogs, Bo and Sunny — for the canine-appropriate “Can I Be Your Dog?”, by Troy Cummings. The series can be viewed on the Facebook and YouTube pages of PBS Kids and on the Facebook page of the Obamas’ publisher, Penguin Random House. 
 
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The director for the Western Hemisphere of the International Monetary Fund, Alejandro Werner, says the region can expect some rough economic times after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. He spoke Voice of America reporter Jorge Agobian in this report narrated by Ben Cento.Camera: Jorge AgobianProduced by: Cristina Caicedo Smit  
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Qatar Airways crew will now wear full protective suits on flights in an effort to “reassure” passengers of their safety against the novel coronavirus, the airline announced Monday.Cabin crew had already been wearing masks and gloves, the airline said.“Cabin crew will wear the PPE suit over their uniforms in addition to safety goggles, gloves and a mask to provide even greater reassurance to customers in addition to enhanced hygienic measures already in place,” Qatar Airways wrote in a press release.“The airline now requires passengers from Monday, May 25, to wear face coverings inflight and recommends people bring their own for fit and comfort purposes,” it added.Qatar Airways has been one of the few major airlines in the world with regular, scheduled flights as most countries imposed lockdowns and travel restrictions in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19.Major airlines are requiring passengers to wear face masks during flights to protect passengers and crew members against the coronavirus. Some are blocking middle seats to create spacing between passengers, as well as suspending snacks and beverage services to limit interaction.
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